The regular season wasn't a bust. You win 52 times in the NBA, and there are a lot of teams that wish they would have been in your sneakers.

But the great thing about the Mavericks is that, even though they didn't shank the regular season, neither did they rip it down the middle of the fairway. So they still get a mulligan, also known as the playoffs.

"The playoffs," Steve Nash said, "are about redemption for us."

That was the theme Thursday as preparations began for playing the Sacramento Kings in the first round. Game 1 of the best-of-7 series is Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at ARCO Arena.

"It's going to be a tough series, and it should be a fun one to watch," Michael Finley said. "We would have liked a higher seed, but that's neither here nor there. So we move on and use the playoffs as a new season. For us, to get over the hump against Sacramento would [help] put a sub-par regular season behind us."

Coach Don Nelson scoffed at suggestions that the regular season was a disappointment because the team did not make good on its potential.

"I don't think they underachieved," he said of his players. "I think everybody tried as hard as they could. We weren't as good as we had hoped."